WASHINGTON — For North Carolina preacher Mark Harris, the 2014 midterm elections are all about “the survival of this nation as we know it.” That means outlawing gay marriage, because being gay is “a choice.”

For Dr. Greg Brannon, America’s survival depends on replacing public with religious schools and repealing public health care and food stamp programs because they “enslave” people and represent “central planning” like the “Holocaust” and the “Soviet Union.”

For Thom Tillis, America’s future lies in trying to “divide and conquer” people on government assistance by using sick people to shame poor people into getting off welfare.

The three Republicans head the lineup for one of the most pivotal GOP primaries leading up to November’s midterm elections. North Carolina Republicans vote this week to decide who will be their candidate to unseat vulnerable Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan.

Tillis, the state House speaker and a former IBM executive, is considered the front-runner among a threesome of Tea Party candidates that some people have characterized as “the right, the far right and the extreme right.”

Since 2010, Republican primaries have been mainly about a lone Tea Party candidate struggling to take down the GOP establishment. But in North Carolina the Tea Party has become the establishment, and the real test of the far right’s continued success is whether it can win in November — the true gauge of American polarization.

The primary season is now in full swing. Experts claim Democrats have little chance of regaining the House and could lose the Senate. Three tight races could swing the Senate into Republican hands — North Carolina, Louisiana and Alaska.

The question that haunts Republicans, however, is whether the primaries will produce electable candidates or a crop of wackos who are too far right for your average conservative. Still fresh in the minds of the GOP is the self-destruction of Tea Party senatorial candidates Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, who in 2012 lost winnable races after women turned against them after references to “legitimate rape” and that “God intended” pregnancies resulting from rape.

The two became symbols of the unelectable. The way primaries are shaping up in North Carolina, Georgia and a number of other states, that same issue looms.

In North Carolina, prominent Republicans have lined up behind each of the candidates. Libertarian Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has endorsed and actively campaigned for Brannon. Polls indicate that Paul’s support has helped boost Brannon’s popularity by eight points.

Front-runner Tillis has the endorsements of establishment stars Mitt Romney and former Florida governor Jebb Bush, even though Tillis has all the hallmarks of the far right.

“Electability is now an important factor for us,” Sal Russo, chief strategist for the Tea Party Express, told the conservative Washington Times. “We’re not just here to wave the flag.”

In Georgia, Tea Party candidate Rep. Paul Broun is leading the race for the GOP senatorial nomination to run against Democrat hopeful Michelle Nunn, daughter of former senator Sam Nunn. The Senate seat is open because of the retirement of Republican Saxby Chambliss, and the GOP needs to retain it for any chance of regaining the Senate.

Broun is one of about a dozen GOP primary candidates who are raffling off guns to attract donors as part of the “Defend Liberty Gun Giveaway.” He gave away a semi-automatic rifle claiming, “We need conservative voices who will not only vote right but will also fight tooth and nail for our values and our rights.”

Broun also claims evolution and the big bang theory are “lies straight from the pit of hell.”

His main rival in the primary is fellow congressman Phil Gingrey, an obstetrician-gynecologist who once defended Todd Akin’s remark about “legitimate rape” and opposes public health care.

“I’ll help repeal Obamacare in my first term or go home, because you deserve a senator who gets the job done or gets out of the way,” he says in a TV ad. Most of his funding comes from health-care companies, according to opensecrets.com.

Another GOP primary race to watch is in Kentucky, where Tea Party candidate Matt Bevin has taken on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Bevin is best known for delivering a campaign speech at a cockfight. Asked if he favoured decriminalizing cockfighting, he replied, “Criminalizing behaviour, if it’s part of the heritage of this state, is in my opinion a bad idea.”

He later claimed he “did not realize the event had anything to do with cockfighting.”